


Girl The Hell Up

by nklayne



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dark Magic, Death, F/F, Femslash, Grief/Mourning, Magic-Users, Morbid, Suicidal Thoughts, hate ships, season 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:11:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 15,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4222974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nklayne/pseuds/nklayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow Rosenberg transfers to Silas University to recover from her dark magic addiction while helping Giles on a case on an apocalyptic vampire named Carmilla. | BuffyxCarmilla Crossover | No sex (yet~) | Carmilla crossover really starts happening in Ch.5 & onwards | TW: Suicidal Thoughts, Grief/Mourning, Morbid/Death</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> @_indelible

“One...two....three..” Willow counted her breath as she used her pale, freckled fingers to trace the sun-beaten tapestry she was sitting upon. Her breath kept a steady rhythm --- until a ratchet thought seeped from mind to lungs.

It occurred to Willow that everyday -- multiple times a day -- lovers were murdered on this god forsaken planet. That her mourning -- her stomach cramping, throat-closing, knuckle clenching mourning -- was only a blip in the universe’s timeline.

It wasn’t the first time Willow fell into this thought-cycle. She would think it, again and again, as if she can add up all the meaningless injustices and get to a different conclusion, but all she received were fresh, violet bruises on her already ebony heart.

All she had to do was slip _one_ spell. One spell could lead to _some_ justice. Some vengeance. Despite everything that happened, it was vengeance that Willow hungered for.

Around Willow were three other witches, also meditating on the Coven’s front lawn. Willow didn’t know any of their names. She wasn’t even sure if she ever introduced herself to them. She did know that they flinched away any time she got too close.

Giles was sitting on a tweed tapestry, in front of the mediation class. He was squinting at well-worn leather volume with a foreign title that Willow couldn’t translate, trying to wipe the sweat that bundled on his blushed forehead, before it dripped down his wrinkled face onto the yellowed-pages below.

He shook his head; muttered something incomprehensible.

Willow tried to lean forward, to hear exactly what Giles was saying to himself, but before she could, Giles looked up from his book.

She closed her eyes with the casual grace of a Fyarl demon, silently cursing at herself for being so aloof.

She was going to attempt to meditate again, but before she could, a bellowing ring exhaled over the mediation lawn.

Willow opened her eyes. Giles was staring at her, mallet in hand, the brass gong to his side slightly vibrating. The rest of the witches got up to head to the cafeteria for lunch time, however Willow lingered.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“We need to talk about your return to Sunnydale. I think it is time.”

“What? I don’t know...” Willow’s shoulders tightened; she bit her lower lip. “There is still so much... to learn... to make sure that I don’t get all veiny and homicidal again. Isn’t that the point of this whole trip? And what if--”

“They don’t take you back? I don’t know what the Scoobies are going to do with you, Willow, but you can’t hide here forever. At a certain point, you can only grow by experiencing the world.”

Willow nodded, tears building in the corner of her eyes. “Thank you, by the way. Thank you for taking me here, showing me everything there is to know about how connected we all are. I thought -- I thought you were taking me to England to kill me in front of the council... punish me...”

“Do you want to be punished?”

“I wanna be Willow.” Willow brushed her scarlet hair behind her ear and sighed.

“You are. You always will be, don’t matter what happens, don’t matter what you have done. All that matters is what you do next. You need to commit to an act of redemption, otherwise you’ll always be the last thing you really done, which yes, was on the serial killer side of things.”

“You were always so wise.”

Giles laughed as he pulled a cloth from his pocket to clean his glasses. “Thanks, but I’m not that wise. Mindful, perhaps, but there is lots I don’t know. Sorry -- I’m having issues with this text on the Silas Hellmouth.”

“Right... I forgot there are other Hellmouths...” Willow raised an eyebrow. “I bet... with the Slayer being all Sunnydale bound.. those other ones need some assistance....”

“Here is another piece of wisdom for you. Redemption requires us to stretch past our comfort zone and face what fears us most. And for you, that’s Sunnydale and your friends.”

* * *

 

Willow and Giles headed towards a bulbous, dome shaped building that loomed over the Coven campus. Inside the building was the library.

As soon as Willow entered, a calm trickled down her spine like the surrounding books were cool water, cleaning her body and mind from anxiety and grime. Her bookthirsty lust was a familiar, nostalgic feeling. One she had way before she learned about magic. It was something that was intrinsically Willow, and she lavished that one firmness to her self-identity.

“Wow. I don’t know why I been avoiding this place, Giles. It is so...nifty,” said Willow.

“Ah. Yes. The plethora of books the Coven has is quite.... impressive in this breadth and rarity. The Demonology section is right over there,” Giles pointed to the far corner, “Just informational texts though. Nothing here about demonology creationism or anything on the darker side of things.”

“All these spellbooks....they are all light magic?” Willow thumbed the spines of a few pale books on the nearby shelves.

“The only dark magic in the Coven, Willow, is the dark magic that is now apart of you. Anyway, carry on.”

Willow looked up at Giles old, cracked face. He was staring at her, with narrowed eyes, like she was a specimen in a laboratory. She would have been insulted by the look, if it didn’t have merit. She was, in fact, thinking about how she could suck the magic right out of this enclave of light-magic spell books. How that probably would negate the dark magic that was inside. But she knew sucking out another entity's power wasn’t exactly kosher by the Coven’s standards. Or Giles’.

“Okay. Let’s get crackin’ with the books. A book crackin’,” Willow said, heading to the demonology section. She lurked over the shelves, unsure which text to grab, “So, what exactly am I looking for?”

“A vampire. There is a vampire in Silas that is basing her upcoming apocalypse on something old, something very old.”

“A vampire? What’s their name?”

“Carmilla.”

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willow investigates Giles suspicions on an upcoming apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :x Just want to write femslash lol but gotta do some plotting first. Hopefully this is gripping.

Some time after, when Will’s sinuses were analogous with the surrounding book-must, she stumbled onto a volume with passages on Carmilla’s sire. Book in hand, she hobbled over to Giles, who was leaning on a nearby desk. “Hey, Giles. Check this out.”

“Ah. Can I please take hold of that?” Giles took the book out of Willow’s hand and thumbed the pages about the great, apocalyptic power that Carmilla’s sire possessed. He lingered on one of the pages. “Look. This photograph...”

As Giles put the book down, Willow was able to reassess an image that was in the center of the page. It consisted of a large central human-figure, with two perky breasts, holding a plate while standing on a wagon. Other figures, with differentiating sex signifiers, were also on the wagon. They were nude and held up swords and shields.

Giles then opened up a different, stout book with a mustard hardcover. Willow recognized it as the same text he was fumbling with earlier that morning, on the meditation lawn. It was written in an alphabet Willow was unfamiliar with, however, on the page Giles opened up to was the same photograph.

“Ah. Yes. The Strettweg Chariot. It is believed the ancient Celtics presented this sculpture in 600 BC for the burial of an unknown prince, in what is now considered Austria. The thing is princehood is an intrinsically patriarchal figure and here in this sculpture they are worshipping this beautifully divine feminine figure. The juxtaposition has been written about in academia to no end, but it is probably symbolism. You know, fair lady, too pure, too good, for anything but idealism.”

“Point, Giles?”

“Point is, I know absolutely that the text in _my_ book isn’t form of ancient Celtic.” Giles furrowed his brows as he took a glasses wipe out of his front pocket. “Yet, your book says that’s where Carmilla’s roots are. It doesn’t make sense.”

“You think there is something encrypted on this chariot? Something to do with the apocalypse?”

Giles nodded. “Yes, Willow. That’s exactly what I think.”

* * *

Later that evening, while laying in bed, Willow wondered what Buffy would do if she knew an apocalypse was hatching. Would she drop everything and run to it? Probably. It wouldn’t be in Buffy’s character to just nod on because Giles told her that someone else has got it covered.

For Buffy, the entire planet was her responsibility and she wouldn’t let go of that pressure for even a second. Willow has watched that vice surface up again and again throughout her friendship with Buffy.

_Friendship._ When was it ever, really, that simple?

Even before -- before Willow tried to destroy the world, before Willow brought Buffy from the dead, before they made new friends at college, before Buffy ran away from Sunnydale -- things weren’t simple.

She was always _Buffy_ in big bold letters.

Willow asked Giles if she could get the transfer to Silas University and check out the chariot, but he denied her. He always did.

She asked if Giles was going to bring this up to Buffy when he returned to the States, and he confessed that yes, eventually and someday he will visit Sunnydale, but no time soon.

“How can I never see her again?” Willow mumbled to herself, while rocking back and forth in her four poster. Willow might bitterly snark to Giles that the only thing of value in Sunnydale is Tara’s grave -- but that wasn’t true.

There was a small, perky, blonde, witty, complex, sophisticated, Slayer that truly defined Sunnydale. That Willow would miss, everyday, if she never went back.

********


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting close!!

The next morning, Willow headed to the library wearing an oversized, black sweater. Last night etched in every budding wrinkle, puffed eyelid, and  twitchy spasm, on her small body. She couldn’t sleep because she was having her late-night thoughts. It started ordinary, for her, in the sense that she kept herself occupied deconstructing of everything that could go wrong if she _never_ went to Sunnydale. To which her mind replied with everything that could go wrong if she heeded to Giles advice and _did_ go back.

And then, as her stress amplified out of the concave of mind, into her rushing blood stream and restless breath, she started to hear what her burnt heart had to say.

Because Willow knew that things weren’t so dualistic. That when one gathers as much as power as she has, the limit is only imagination.

For instance, if she wanted to destroy Sunnydale, she could do that from the comfort of her Coven dorm room. If she wanted to, she could burn that small town, so that the human dust blended into the vampire dust in one serene Hellmouth blend. Going back to Sunnydale wouldn’t be a conflict if Sunnydale didn’t exist at all. That was a thing she _could_ do.

She didn’t _want_ that. She _wanted_ her friends to be happy, healthy, and whole until the end of time.

But that dark voice was so melodic when it slithered inside her cavities, inside her soul. She wondered that when the Coven said that the magicks were part of her now did they mean that evil was a part of her now?

What if she figured out this Carmilla case? Saved the world, all by herself? Would Buffy be impressed with her then?

Would she be anything other than that homicidal witch?

Would she be anything other than _just_ Willow?

The next day she immediately headed to the library to work on these questions. There she found Giles leaning on the oak desk that cornered the demonology section, thumbing through an oversized text.

“Morning Giles,” Willow said, making her presence known.

Giles looked up with squinted eyes, like everything outside the book at hand was unreal. “What.. what are you doing here?”  

“What do you mean?” Willow took a step back, twisted her fingers into the the black fringe to her sweater. “Isn’t it still impending apocalypse o’clock?”

“No. I mean -- shouldn’t you be working on your studies? With the Coven?” Giles shook his head, as he took out a glasses cloth out of his front pocket. “Or is this your way of saying that you don’t need any more help? That you are ready to go back?”

“No. If I wanted to go back I would just say so.” Willow scrunched her eyebrows. “Why does everything go back to that? Why are you so desperate to get me back to Sunnydale?”

Giles shrugged. “I didn’t mean for you to get so involved in this Carmilla case. My work shouldn’t get in the way of your life.”

Willow laughed. Shortly. Abruptly. One heavy exhale.

It was a chicken and the egg situation. Was Buffy so egomaniac because she was raised by a Watcher or were Watchers so egomaniac because they spend all day working with Slayers? Whose ego bloated first?  

Willow had eagerly fought evil since her best friend, Jesse, was killed by a vampire, seven years ago. Since she learned there was a supernatural war to fight in the first place.

How can Giles say that this wasn’t Willow’s work? Wasn’t Willow’s life? Hasn’t she been there, tooth and nail, sacrificing her very sense of self, for the last seven years? _Just like Buffy?_

Perhaps she was delusional for being so passionate about the good fight. It probably was what put Tara in danger, but couldn’t something similar be said of Buffy?

However, to Giles, the chosen Watcher, Will’s own similarities to the Slayer were something to overlook. There were no prophecies about a shy nerd who became addicted to witchcraft, after all.

“You don’t want me here?” Willow asked Giles.

“I want you to get better, Willow. Sunnydale needs you.”

“What?” Just the idea of the Scoobies in danger caused Willow to inhale harshly, like the sudden whiplash of a Valkyrie's cry. “Is there something you aren’t saying? Is Buffy in trouble?”

“No. I’m sorry. I misspoke. I meant to say, you need Sunnydale.” Giles rubbed the back of his neck while wearing a half-cocked grin.

* * *

“So sleepy...” Willow rubbed her freckled cheeks with the contours of her palm, trying to keep herself awake. After Giles’ rejection, she left the library but she only made it a few feet before her body drooped into the dewy grass.

“ _Caffea._ ” Willow slurred.

A sudden alertness vibrated through Willow’s eyelids and down her blood stream. The spell couldn’t replace sleep, however it would give her enough strength to get to her dorm room. After a quick nap she would go back to the Coven schedule and work on her studies, like Giles suggested.

“Willow!”

Will turned around to face the husky voice that called her name. It was Ms. Harris, one of the teachers at the Coven.

“So, I totally busted you using magic selfishly.” Ms. Harris brushed her hands through her long black ringlets. She bent over, so she was face-to-face with Willow. “This is also not your first offence.”

Willow glared at Ms. Harris’ broad face. The teacher took a step back.

“I don’t know. If you don’t want to get better than the Coven can’t help you.”  

“I _do_ want to get better. I don’t -- I don’t get why everyone is saying that I don’t.” Willow raised herself and crossed her arms. “I want to be a good person.”

Ms. Harris shrugged. “Then why aren’t you in class?”

“I -- I been thinking about next steps. Like, I haven’t scorn anyone in weeks. That’s a pretty good sign, right? Perhaps, I’m ready to be a good person, like out there, in the real world. Maybe Giles is right and I am ready to leave the Coven?”

“And where would you like to go?”

“Some place new. I was thinking....Silas University.”

“Hm. I think we can make that work.”


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !! This took me forever. Gah. We are so so close to really getting in it.

When Tara was shot, all the life got sucked out of Willow. From that moment on, she felt like the mossy walls to a vast, dark, _empty_ cave. However, as she returned to her dorm room, joy, like cave formations, rocked in and out of her internal space.

Not joy. Power. Defying Giles, squirming her way to Silas, made Willow feel like she could do _anything_. Like, she could get whatever she wanted.

Willow’s upturned and slanted smile nuzzled her pillow as she curled into her bed. She closed her eyelids and welcomed the blackness, until her imagination brought a familiar face front and center.  

_Giles._

Willow jumped out of bed. “I... I should... I should pack. Yes. Should do the packing thing. Then I could leave... at a moment’s notice.. before... before...”

Willow cowered into her cupped hands as she whispered, “....before Giles gets in my way.”

Willow growled into her palms, grazed her flesh with her front teeth. She wanted to bite herself, eat herself alive. She wanted to be eaten alive -- to not exist any more. She was just starting to enjoy life again, until she was reminded that life was constrained in the prison of _Willow_. That to enjoy life, she must sense it through the wicked monster that schemes plans behind her friend’s backs.

On Will’s slate-gray wall was one coat hook. Hung on it was a long, flowy dress with a built in corset.

It was the dress Tara wore that time they were stuck in a musical.

Willow moved towards it. She wrapped her fingers around the orange skirt as she nuzzled into the material. The dress was still stained with Tara’s sweet, candy smell.

Before Will knew what was happening, hot tears rolled streams down her cheekbones.

Her bottom lip quivered as she grappled with the dress, bringing it closer to her.

She was a fool. She was a fool to believe power was anything close to joy.

True joy was singing and dancing with the love of her life. True joy was looking into Tara’s icy blue eyes, curved smile and feeling only hope for the future. In one action, one ear-splitting gun shot, true joy had evaporated. And everything else? That was meaningless.

If Tara knew what Willow had been up to...

...she would be so disappointed. She would say that Willow was not dealing with her recovery. That perhaps Willow wasn’t abusing magic, but she was still putting her indulgences first.

Willow dug her nails into the soft, pudge on her shoulders. “Maybe not... though?  Maybe she wouldn’t be disgusted with me?”

Willow was taught techniques at the Coven that were intended to help her see past her dark self. The idea was that everyone had an inner moral compass within, Willow needed tools to find hers.

All Willow had to do was sit lotus style, with one leg crossed over the other, with her hands resting on top of her knees. She sat straight up, as if her spine was a stack of coins, and closed her eyes.

_“All mighty Athena, Goddess of Justice. Please guide my meditation, and show me the light.”_

Willow was overcome with a slipping sensation, as if she was slowly falling off a cliff. She stopped breathing as she gripped her knees a bit tighter until the vertigo passed and she found herself tousled in black velvet sheets.

There was nothing to see except the crinkles of material and the bell-ring of laughter.

In imagination, Willow turned her head towards the noise and found Tara, sitting crosslegged on top of a purple pillow. She was staring at Will.

Then she waved, eagerly quickly, so her peach-hued hand blurred, and for a moment, Willow forgot that her vision was fantasy.

She limply waved back, her throat closing in. All she could muster was a whisper, “Tara. I... I’m sorry --”

“No,” Tara interrupted, “That’s not why you called me. Not to apologize.”

Willow raised an eyebrow. “Athena?”

 _Tara_ nodded. “Yes. I am here to be your guide. I am here to answer your question.”

Willow’s gut felt as if it had been dropped to her knees. For a moment, she really believed she would get the chance to apologize to Tara for putting her in danger. But, it seemed that moment would never come.

As Willow sighed her shoulders slumped forward. “Yeah... I have a question... I have a lot of questions...”

“I can only answer one. We can on meditate on one thing at a time.”

Willow nibbled on the squishy insides of her lips. “Am I bad if I don’t go to Sunnydale?”

 _Tara_ reached out and rubbed Willow’s knuckles and chills went up Willow’s arm. “You are never bad, Willow, and you are never good. You need to confront Giles and own up to your actions, however, the truth is, the only person who knows what is best for your recovery is you.”

“Oh. Well then...” Willow stared down at _Tara’s_ hands. Her nails were long and natural and her index finger freckled. They looked just like the hands Willow used to hold. “Silas. I think I need to go to Silas and learn how to be respected as my own person. I just -- I can’t be a sidekick again. In Sunnydale I’m demoted, and I need to see what I can be without the Slayer around.  Is that -- is that an evil thing?”  

 _Tara_ shook her head. “There is truth in what Giles was saying, that you need Sunnydale. Sunnydale needs you too, he missed that, however, it can wait for a few months.”

Before Willow could respond to that information, she was jerked out of her trance by harsh knocking.

Willow turned around, towards the noise. There she found Giles, peering into the room,  looking seriously pissed off.

* * *

The silence that filled the room was so tangible, it was like noise. Each breath and movement echoed in the small space. Outside, birds sang and witches chattered, yet it sounded more like static than anything else.

Willow didn’t know what to say. She should have expected that Giles would come find her, yet she was too busy first scheming and then debating the moral value of such schemes, that she didn’t really plan out this confrontation.

Giles wasn’t speaking either. He had entered the room, closed the door, and leaned back on it with his arms crossed. He stared at her with pursed lips and harrowing eyes, looking as angry as he was when Willow brought Buffy back from the dead.

Eventually, Giles was the first to break the silence with a long, howling exhale. “It’s fine. You’re an adult, so it’s fine. Do whatever you want. What’s there to say?”

“Didn’t mean to do this behind your back again. It wasn’t like last time, it wasn’t so thought out. I just found a way, and said yes. I mean... if I appologize, does it matter?”

Giles shrugged. “You should know, the Council will not be as forgiving if you go, as you say, all veiny and homicidal again.”

“I’m not -- I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Willow rubbed her arms, felt the curved imprints of where her nails dug in. “I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

“You did.” Giles combed his dark-gray hair with his hands. “I’m sorry I pushed Sunnydale on you so hard.”

“I just -- I just need space. From you, the Coven, Sunnydale, everyone. I need... I need space to figure out what it means to be Willow. I can’t -- I just can’t think when I’m around everyone else. I become like playdoh, bending to everyone else’s preferred version of me. I become... powerless.”

“I know. The truth is, Sunnydale isn’t going anywhere. You can always go back after your retreat in Silas.”

Willow raised her head so she was facing Giles head-on. He was lightly smiling.  

“I don’t know if you need my approval or not... but well, the truth is, having an inside person on campus will help me solve this Carmilla case. Plus, you always been far more independent than I have given you credit, I think you know what you need more than I do.” Giles pulled out a white, rectangular piece of paper out of his back pocket. “Well, you better start packing. You don’t want to miss your flight to Silas.”


	5. Chapter 5

_Almond shaped eyes glowered down at Willow from the Coven nightscape._

_They were the color of polished gold with black opals in the center. They protruded a jasmine glow, masking the stardust and moon._

_Willow reached her freckled fingers out to the shapes. “Nifty.”_

_Like a meteorites’ kiss, the eyes glided downwards._

_Willow flinched backwards, just a nudge. She knew she should run for safety, yet despite all rational she stayed put and watched._

_Their size enlarged as they fell closer, until they reached the height of the treetops. Then they suddenly stopped falling._

_Willow stretched her neck up and nudged herself left and right, watching the lingering eyes follow her movements. “Are you... are you watching me?”_

_A guttural purr responded._

_It wasn’t the reaction she expected. She cocked her head to try to get a better look at the creature above._

_Vaguely, blurring in and out of the dim sky, was the thin outline of a giant beast. Upright, slightly blushed, coned ears crowned a head with narrow temples and puffed cheeks, that protruded off-white wisps. It had a boulderous build, with a long, thick tail that stood upright, pointing towards the moon._

_Willow couldn’t help but audibly gulp. “I -- I’m... You -- you’re....”_

_The creature lowered its head, so its nose poked Willow’s forehead with a wet kiss._

_“I finally found you.”_

Willow was swung to the right-side of her seat. The plane was having serious turbulence, rocking left and right. Groggy, Willow looked up at the television screen, to see how much longer she would have to be the hacky sack in a competitive game.

Only one more hour until arrival.


	6. Chapter Six

Towards the end of the next day, Willow lingered on a picnic table at the edges of the Silas University quad. The quad was in the center of campus, thrusted on top of a hill, where students could get a pretty complete view of the University and the surrounding mountainscape. Willow looked out, expecting a new school in a new country to look dramatically different from University of Sunnydale. However, mountains to the side, the layout was pretty familiar.

There were the same frisbee games played around her, on the dew coated lawn. The same rows of dorm buildings, filled with excited students starting their dream college experience. The same candy-toned sunset, closing the day. The same Alchemy Club experiments coloring in the roads and pathways with floating lights and whispering plants. And, a University token, the same horrifying death trap of a library outlined in glowing black smoke.

It was nearly exactly the same as Willow remembered college.

Except for herself -- she was far different than the last time she was walking Sunnydale Campus, dark magic addiction to the side.

She just left her first University of Silas class, Sociology 400, in which she felt as loss as a vampire reading the bible. The language used in the lecture didn’t make any sense -- a conversation about sociological conditioning quickly turned trilingual. There was Sumerian spoken, but also something else. Something wicked and deep-throated, like a frog’s wail, was used to communicate the relationship the individual has with their society.

Willow leaned into the picnic bench, feeling as if her brain got scooped up, drained, and processed into a tub of sour yogurt. She expected Sociology to challenge her world view, but she might actually fail before that could happen.

She shuddered.  

“What’s wrong, Cinnabear?” asked a raspy voice, from behind.

Willow turned around, to face the stranger.

She was a light-skinned brunette that stood with a slight curve to her spine, as if the air around her was a cushion to lounge in. The snarl on her lip, the scrunch in her brows, tightened, relaxed, and tightened again, keeping her pointed face in perpetual motion. She wore tight, form-fitting black pants, and an equally tight black tea, leaving no ambiguity to her long, narrow legs or her well endowed chest.

Behind her, the sun dipped beneath the mountain side and campus buildings, leaving behind only a rouge light in its wake.

Willow’s heartbeat picked up pace. She toyed with her lower-lip with her thumb and index finger and shrugged, not sure what to say.

“Oh. Ya. I’m sure you came up here to meditate on the sweetness of lollipops and the speed of puppy dog tails. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

Her melodic voice poured through Willow’s defenses, seeped into her bloodstream, like a singular raincloud soaking parched land.

It was a fuzzy feeling, that curled her toes curled, shook her knees. It sucked her belly in, and opened her eyes wide.

She took in a sharp inhale. The entire world fading out, leaving behind only Wilow and the stranger. And then, as her heart ballooned a bit more, kissing the curve of her ribcage, Willow felt a fresh pang.

_This wasn’t right. A stranger, even a beautiful one, shouldn’t make her feel like this._

White crackles of electricity bursted from Willow’s palms, as she tried to take in control. Through gritted teeth, Willow spoke, “What are you?”

“Ease off, Cinnibear.” The stranger laughed. “Call me Carmilla.”

Willow squinted her eyes. The dusk around them only starting to blacken to night. If Carmilla was a vampire, then she should be only coming out now. “Whatever you are, trust me, you really don’t want to piss me off.”

Carmilla raised an eyebrow. “Hey, hey. I’m not a foe. I’m an ally. We both want the same thing.”

“And what would that be?”

“To destroy the world.”

* * *

Willow jerked a few steps away.

She wasn’t sure what she expected Carmilla to say -- but that wasn’t it. She actually believed, up to that moment, that no one in Austria would know of where she came from. Of what she did. Her breath shallowed, as if Carmilla was sitting on her chest, crushing her.

This wasn’t good. This wasn’t an option for Willow. She didn’t travel six-thousand miles from Sunnydale to feel like this.

She could feel the soft-tingle of her eyes glazing over to black, as she called upon dark magic to destroy Carmilla and anyone else out there who would remind her of what she did.

Her palm’s crackles emitted a blue glow as they sped up.

Carmilla smile spread wider and wider, stopping Willow short.

“If you know what I can do -- then why aren’t you scared?” asked Willow.

“Thought you given all that up?”

“I did.” Willow crossed her arms. “I’m good now.”

“Uh huh. The good little witch, praying to the dark gods to kill anyone who makes them a little uncomfortable.”

“You’re a monster. I’m allowed to kill you.” Willow brushed her hands through her hair. She looked into her palm, found strands of black hair. She took an audible gulp as Carmilla’s plan clicked into place. “You -- you’re a lure. You’re trying to get me go back to dark.”

Carmilla rubbed the curve of her own shoulder. “If that’s what you want to call me.”

“You’re wasting your time.” Willow softened her features, so her eyes returned to their leafy green, her hair lightened to its natural scarlet. “Get out of my sight.”

“As you wish.” Carmilla flashed Willow one last smile, before dissolving into smoke. 


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicidal Thoughts

Willow swayed on the hilltop; the autumn’s breeze molesting her body, knotting her mantling hair. She looked out at the campus around her, disfigured by nighttime’s rush of black and then, as her eyes tired, she moved her observations to her gray palm, briefly, and then to the sliver of the crescent moon. She longed to jump to the space rock, but her roots weren’t stuck in the quad, tangled in ant hills and worm guts.

Lingering into the night was a reckless move.

She was supposed to be snuggled into the safety of her dorm room, possibly calling Giles and explaining what happened. She was supposed to be redeeming herself. Doing _something_ good and innocent. Something that resembled her youth.

She felt nothing over what she was supposed to do. Neither submission nor resentment. She acknowledged the obligation, and let it float by. Instead, she rubbed her jaw, her throat and lingered. Her heartbeats’ verboso twitched into the core of her icy hand.

Willow was reminded of what Buffy said, a few months ago. She said that the Scoobies didn’t know how hard it was her to just be there. To just be alive. That she no longer could feel the warmth of life and wanted the fire back.

For a brief moment, Carmilla’s raspy whispers made Willow feel the warmth of life. Made her feel as comforted as she felt when she held Tara. And then, when Carmilla evaporated so did the comfort. She returned to her body, chilled and corpse-like.

But, Carmilla’s seduction was as real as a love spell. It was an uncomparable delusion that couldn’t actually be compared to the soul-bursting passion Willow had for Tara. Rationally, Willow understood.

Emotionally, she was considering rolling her body off the hill and splatting into a tree or a building or something that would cause a short stop to her guilt-filled existence.

She started to shake as the morbid craving pressed a bit harder.

“I... I need help. Again. I need help _again_ , but this time, there’s no Buffy or Giles or anyone. This time I’m really alone...” Tears starting to stream down her freckled cheeks. “I think... I think coming to Silas was a mistake.”

* * *

Willow collapsed, wearing heavy eyelids and shallow breaths, as she welcomed visions of Tara dancing around in her flowing dress. The night pursued, wrapping her curled up shape in shades of midnight-blue.

There was that soundtrack again, that Willow hasn’t heard since Sunnydale. The soundtrack of the night. Beasties growling out their mating calls or perhaps threats of rage.

Willow couldn’t really care, she snuggled deeper into the blades of grass, crying and drooling her imprint into the quad. She squinted, until Tara took over, and everything else faded to abyss.

She wasn’t sure how long she slept like that, but some time later she was jerked awake by a heated, wet caress rubbing across her face.

Willow opened her crusted eyes and saw the blurred shape of a large black cat licking her awake.

“Wha...?” She slowly stood up, shaking the last bit of sleep off.

The cat stared at her, with golden eyes, and perked up ears.

“Are you... my familiar?” Willow asked. She heard powerful witches were greeted by familiars that helped them facilitate their magic. “Or, better question, are you a familiar of the light...or the dark?”

The cat didn’t respond. Instead, it headed downwards, off the hill, deeper into the Silas campus. Willow quickly followed, using a light spell, to help illuminate the pathway. To her surprise, the cat brought Willow to her own dorm building.

“Is.. is someone hurt?”

The cat purred, licked its own paw.

Willow opened the front door, yet still the cat stood in place. “You can come with me... if you want? Show me the danger?”

The cat looked up at Willow, stared right into her eyes,  as if it had a moment of understanding.

Willow lightly smiled and clicked her tongue, yet the cat turned away, heading into the darkness of the campus.

“Did... did that cat just take me home?” Willow asked herself, before heading to bed.

 

 


	8. Chapter Eight

Carmilla knelt bell shapes into the Persian carpet that laid in front of mommy dearest. She kept her eyes downcast, as if the obscure patterns that marked the tapestry’s were the most interesting thing in the world, despite a general apathy in home decor. It was just some stimulation to keep her from entirely drifting off, as she nibbled on her lower lip, waiting for her mother, The Dean, to acknowledge her existence.

The Dean, however, was preoccupying itself with a book the size of Carmilla’s torso. They were reading it outloud, in an overly melodic voice, like they used to do when Carmilla was a recently turned vamp, eager to listen to sung out lullabies and fairy tales. The text was Ancient Celtic, but barely so. The syntax didn’t fully follow Celtic rules, however the vocabulary was clearly Celtic.

The Dean was puzzled by this. “I don’t know, Karn. Sure the Chariot is the way to go? There’s prob other apocalyptic weaponry lingering in the Silas University museum, antsy to be dusted off and used, that doesn’t have the same....hassle.”

Carmilla shrugged her shoulders in brief staccato motion. “Whatever. Does it really matter? We pick a weapon, the world ends, we return to the black abyss, and everything that ever existed loses its slight meaning.” Carmilla pet the rug beneath her, scratching her stark-white palms with the hard bristles, quietly sighing into herself. “Don’t you know by now that I don’t care?”

A heavy silence permeated the space between them, until The Dean leaned forward, so they could lightly nudge the edges of Carmilla’s chin upwards. “Hey...honey, look at me.”

Carmilla gripped the curve of her neck, hair slipping in and out of her fingers, as she looked into the pouted face of her mother, leaning into her from their gold-plated throne.

“Tell Mommy what’s wrong.”

Carmilla no longer saw The Dean as the always smiling, always warm, mother figure of her youth, with long tousled black locks, and a snuggly, plump body, that she once took comfort cuddling in. Since her Mother buried her in a coffin filled with blood, Carmilla has been distracted by The Dean’s looming posture, the thickness of the curved, ram horns that jutted out of her forehead, and the boldness of the scarlet lipstick that dyed her pale lips. Looking at her mother in the face consistently caused Carmilla’s gut to drop, her thoughts to scatter out of reach.

Carm shrugged again.

“Are you -- You aren’t still mad at me are you? Ya know, I only do what’s best for my little girl.” The Dean massaged its horns whilst staring at Carmilla’s crumpling posture. “That... that Willow? Do ya like her? Because, I would allow that one. Unlike Ell, she’s one of us. She would get it.”

“Okay. Great. Noted.” Carmilla moved her hands from the back of her neck to the concave of her cheekbones. She rubbed her face, pulled the soft flesh that sagged from her eyes. She couldn't think of a conversation topic more uncomfortable than talking with her sociopathic, helicopter-extreme mother, about which girls she was _allowed_ to be with. Carmilla was three hundred and twenty two years old, and her patience was on its last breath. If it wouldn’t get her buried alive, she would totally respond to her Mother’s invasive questions and duck-faced pout with a spit square in the face.

Instead, she raised herself. She stood with a slight crook, as she leaned her weight on her right side, while crossing her arms across her chest.  “Can I go now?”

The Dean sighed with a great exhale and hum. “Really? You’re not gonna give me any input at all?”

“I just lured and then protected the necessary ingredient for _your_ apocalypse. What more do you want from me?” Carmilla didn’t give The Dean space to answer, as she jutted out the door.

* * *

Carmilla’s room was on the other side of the campus, in the midst of upperclassman housing. Her Mother consistently “advised” Carmilla to pose as a student during the _brief_ periods she required her to be in Silas.

Brief but not brief enough.

Just twenty-four hours prior, Carmilla was cuddling with the jungle heat, deep inside the Nicobar Islands, with nothing but texts and bloodbags at hand. The isolation was a nourishment that she now missed to a sickly level.

Then a seven hour flight to Silas, only to be welcomed to some instant and urgent work. She still hadn’t had a chance to become acquainted with her new space.

Silas was the worst. Silas was an overbearing mother, constantly looming over Carmilla, ordering her with precise instructions of who to lure into various deathtraps. Silas was vampire siblings around every corner, looking for opportunities to push Carmilla down, so they could be mother’s next favorite. Carmilla scoffed at that one. They had no idea how cruel the Dean was when she marked someone a favorite.

Silas was... drunk, whining, loud, obnoxious _students_ everywhere, a four-loco plague, and not being allowed to commit a massacre because mother needed students for her plans.

Silas was Ell’s graveyard and thus also the graveyard of Carmilla’s heart.  

She reached her building, for the second time that night, and headed to her room. Earlier that evening she guided Willow to this building, ensuring she got home safe and sound. Carmilla would be even more dead if the apocalypse's critical key was harmed.

Thinking Willow’s name caused Carmilla’s brain to rattle with disgust. It wasn’t the witch’s fault -- it was her mother’s. When The Dean gave Carmilla permission to pursue Willow, she ruined her appeal, turned her into spoiled meat. Carmilla did find Willow’s freckled cheeks, raven eyes, the slur of her tongue, the shaking of her fists, endearing. But, as soon as the Dean gave her word, Carmilla was over it. Willow became a job, and nothing more.

Carmilla twisted through the hallways of the dorm, eventually bumping into a door marked with her room number. As she opened it she hoped her mother assigned her a cute roommate, or at least a quiet one.

She squinted at the hazy shape sleeping on the bed to the far-side of the door. Even in the darkness, her pale, freckled flesh illuminated a familiar whiteness.

“Of course,” Carmilla mumbled, rolling her eyes at the Dean’s twisted sense of humor, assigning Carmilla’s work as her roommate.


	9. Chapter Nine

The next morning, Willow woke up to a choking retch that was echoing throughout the dormitory halls like a wobbling boomerang searching for its original thrower. Will groaned, so not missing her peers Thirsty Thursday bangers. She was curled to her side, so her crusted eyes faced the off-white wall, where she rubbed the peeled paint with her thumb, allowing the prickly sensations to further wake her up.

She was too old to live in a dormitory, she knew that, but Giles refused to allow her to have the off-campus studio she requested. He said that her healing depended on a consistent flow of socialization.

She was also too old to have her life micromanaged by her best friend’s Watcher, however what could she do? The last time she had control over her life, she nearly destroyed the world.

Will looked up, at the sterile, beige phone that sat on her wooden headboard. She knew she should pick it up and call Giles. She thought, really hard, about the steps needed to fulfill that request yet her body kept immobile, heavy, and confused, as if the steps were as absurd as growing wings and flying off the planet.

She should also call Buffy.

On a professional level, it was best to explain to others in the demon fighting field what happened with Carmilla the previous night. They could go into research mode and help Willow figure out what kind of power Carmilla truly had.

But also, she knew she should just call Buff, just to say...

_....hey._

_I’m sorry for almost killing you and your sister and the world you fight so hard to protect._

_Do you miss me?_

Willow bit her quivering lower lip. There was nothing she could say to Buffy to make things better. She should just pretend the Slayer didn’t exist and move on. And yet...

...and yet, Willow couldn’t help herself. She was curled in a ball, in a dorm room that was 6,000 miles away from Sunnydale, longing for her best friend.

She moaned the soft curdling bleet of someone about to break.

On the other side of the room, her sorrowful noise repeated itself.

Willow turned around. Perpendicular to her, was a bed dressed in messy cheetah-printed sheets. Beneath them, was a protruding bulging shape. It cackled.

“What’s with the funny?” Willow asked.

The bulge repeated Willow’s moan again, this time finishing the noise with farm animal sounds.

“Shut up. I’m warning you.”

“Shut up. I’m warning you,” the bulge whined in an exaggerated falsetto.

Willow raised an eyebrow. “I call to D’Hoffryn and Víðarr, son of Odin.” Electricity cackled out of WIllow’s fingertips. “Hear my fury.”

The printed sheets flew off the bed, leaving behind a familiar brunette. She was looking up at Willow, through her long, side-bangs, while sniggering with her mouth wide. Her canine teeth, the color of peeled cashews, were pointed.

“Morning, CinnaSwirl,” said Carmilla.

* * *

 

Willow reached under her pillow, pulling out her stake. “What did you do with my roommate?”

“Hunny, I am your roommate.” Carmilla sat up, legs dangling on the side of the bed. She stretched, reaching chipped fingernails to the dorm room’s popcorn ceiling. “Did anyone tell you that you have the most beautiful eyes?”

Willow’s orange eyebrows scrunched into each other as she squinted.

“They are so devoid of light, like pocket-sized black holes. The nihilist in me wants to jump in, get sucked in your nothing.”

Willow gasped, rubbed her eyes. “You -- you. You tricked me again.” She prayed for the planet’s good health and prosperity, until a cool vibration outlined her eyes, indicating her midnight pupils had lightened to dawn.  

“Did I?” Carmilla smirked. “Doesn’t take much. Sure you’re anti the dark magic?”

“I’m anti. I’m so anti. If I was any more anti, I would be picketing.”

“ _Sure_.” Carmilla nodded, as she raised herself out of bed. She was wearing nothing other than a plum-purple, velvet nightgown so thin each sway of her perky breasts was clearly punctuated.

Willow tightening her grip, only realizing she was staring when Carmilla bent down to grab clothes from the floor, shielding her breasts out of view.

“Where -- where do you think you’re going? You aren’t leaving until I figure out what you did with my roommate,” said Willow.

“Look, Raven-Eyes. I really, _really_ , did not request to be your roommate, but yet here I am,” Carmilla said while changing, maneuvering herself so her day clothes were put on without removing her nightgown. “Also, your obnoxious whimpering woke me up about eight hours early, so give a vamp a break.”

Willow poked her blushed palm with the tip of her stake.

Her words were cruel and sharp, like a stake of her own. They were comments that would have, ordinarily, cause Willow pain.

And yet, she was having another, stranger reaction.

For the first time, she understood Buffy’s fetish for the undead.

The thought was just a thought, yet it was the first one Willow had in awhile. _Since_. An imaginary gun fired off in Willow’s brain. Glass shards sunk into plush carpet. Her lover’s chest, a geyser of maroon blood. _Your shirt_.

No, it doesn’t matter. Just a stupid thought.

Willow raised her stake with telekinesis. She rotated it so the pointy end faced Carmilla. Without saying anything, Willow jerked the stake forwards, towards Carmilla’s chest, but before it could impale her, Carmilla evaporated into smoke.

The stake dropped to the ground with a rattling ring.

* * *

Willow surged towards the phone and dialed Giles.

She knelt on her bed, twitching from knee to knee while twirling her fiery hair with her index finger. “Pick up. Pick Up. Pick up.”

At the third ring, he answered. “Hello?”

“Giles!” Willow exclaimed into the phone.

“...oh, Willow.” Giles took a great big slurp of something, probably his morning tea. “How’s things? How’s Austria?”

“Carmilla! I found her. And she’s mean. And fangs, I saw fangs. But daylight? She can hang in daylight? I don’t -- oh. And I think she ate my roommate.”

“Wait. Slow down” Giles paused for a second, his breath elevating. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m dandy.” A silence lingered. “I mean, dandy... enough. Let’s say my limbs are all in place and I’m not cursing up an apocalypse.”

“That’s good. And your roommate? You think she let her in?”

“Yeah. I guess she must of.” Willow itched pink marks into the base of her pale neck. “I mean, I never met her. She was all... MIA yesterday... today well... Carm has taken lot.”

“I see.” Giles cleared his throat. “Oh boy. It is.. it is actually possible that Carmilla... is your roommate.”

“What?” Willow jerked her spine straight. “Clarify, please, because... wiggin’...”

“The lore is that Carmilla vaudevilles as a Silas University student. That’s how she meets the lures her sire needs for her plans. Look, Carmilla had to room with someone and it actually makes a lot of sense that it is you. I mean, you probably would need the least convincing to do something... apocalyptic.”

“I see.” Willow sighed to herself, held onto her own gut as if Giles words were a bitter bloat.  “So am I allowed to kill her?”

“Would be more helpful if you met with her sire first.” A rumbling slurp. “But yes, if you must.”


	10. Chapter 10

Carmilla landed, tip-toe first, on the shore of Silas Lake. She twirled her fingers in her fleeing outline as the lake’s curling, white mist absorbed her apparition.

At a distance, floating from fog-covered docks, amber orbs blinked out silent messages to anyone who would bother to squint their eyes. Standing next to them were blurred, vague bodies wearing Silas University jerseys.

Carmilla plopped onto the dew coated mud, indifferent to the chocolate stains kissing the crevices of her skinny-jeans.

She longed, so deeply, for the sweet smells of the blossoming jungle flowers that she was perfuming herself with only a few days prior. Her old life, of isolation with some solitude on top, was increasingly tempting to escape to...

...if escaping wouldn’t get her killed.

There would be torture first. Carmilla was sure of that. Mommy would pull out the big guns, cuddle her with an iron maiden or haunt her dreams with El’s mangled body but eventually death would give her the holy thrust. The Dean would not allow Carmilla to survive a second time.

And things with Willow...

Carmilla spit a wad of caramel-hued phlegm into the mud.

She expected Willow to try to kill her. At first. That’s a respectable reaction for a witch on a redemption arc. It’s exactly what makes her the key. But she didn’t know she was going to live with Will. Where’s Carmilla supposed to go in between homicidal fits? _Class?_

Like now... she was sure her eye sockets were outlined with the dark, astral blue of exhaustion, as she only had three hours of sleep. And yet, where was there to rest?

Without privacy, Carmilla was without the binding that made her a story. She was nothing but stripped pages from a tattered novella.

She curled herself into the plush sand and relaxed into her feline form, where her fur was as black and sweet as solitude.

* * *

“ _Chk chk chk_.”

The noise, like sparrows nesting in the crevice of her coned ears, woke up Carm up with a snarling on her upper lip. Off-yellow canines, as sharp as her vampire form, protruded from murky maroon gums.

“ _Chk. Chk._ Here kitty cat...”

Carmilla’s chartreuse eyes fluttered open as she snorted. Of course.

She released her grip from her feline form, as simple as dropping a stress ball, so her furred shape zilched, in a smoky second, before reappearing as something closer to human.

“There you are, my little monster.”

Carmilla smiled as she gripped her sister in a deep hug. “Mattie!”  

Mattie was certainly here for business, she was wearing her day-to-day, which would have been Sunday’s best for Carm. The boldness of her lipstick, so scarlet Carmilla wondered if she been snacking, was the only popping color in her black ensemble of form fitting trench coat, leggings, and wedge heels. As soon as Mattie broke the hug, she readjusted the bun that capped her head, ensuring each hair kept in place.

She smiled, encouraging Carm to smile even wider. Her big sister. The dark-skinned killer of Eastern Europe. Her friend for 300 years. She didn’t realize how much she had been missing her until they were reunited again.

“Mattie! When did you come back into town?”

“Got my red slip weeks ago, but just last night did I finally arrive.” Mattie rubbed Carmilla’s shoulder. “You got sucked in this Willow mess too sis? Know there’s no other reason you would come to this ice blasted wasteland.”

“Oh yes, mother needs her prized lure, even tho you know she would never say that in a hundred years. We should know.”

“Remember? One hundred years ago, nearly to the dot, Mama jerked us back to this ridiculous pseudo-versity for the big possessing scheme with no please or thank yous about it.”

Carmilla twisted her face into an expression of mock anguish. “ _You really think your Silas Hellmouth can compare to the forces I been cultivating here in Sunnydale._ The Mayor won that one...”

“She was fucking pissed when that plot fell flat on its disfigured face.” Mattie picked dirt out of her long, manicured nails. “Hey, isn’t this witch chick from Sunny? What’s Mama’s childhood trauma? Does she have to take something from the cheery state every hundred years?  She fills me with _ennui_.”

Carmilla shrugged. Dug a bare foot into the gritty sand beneath.

“What’s wrong, lil’ monster?” Mattie rubbed Carmilla’s sharp jaw. “Did Mama... did she hurt you again?”

“No. Not since... you know.” Carmilla looked up, into her sister’s concerned face. “She made me Willow’s roommate. Dark avenger tried to stake me this morning. I just -- I refuse to beg on Mother’s door, asking for a room in her mansion.”

“Well, why don’t you stay with Professor Belmode?”

“Professor?” Carmilla rolled her eyes. “What did you go with? Introduction in Murderess Fashion?”

“Officially called Fashion’s _Macabre_ Theory.” Mattie scrunched her nose. “You know me too well, sis. Or should I say, roomie?”

“Look, thanks for the offer, but I don’t know if I can stay with you. I gotta... make sure I’m in power over Willow. If I fail. If I don’t lure her....”

“Mother will split you and all of us apart like we are nothing but a bunch of luscious, meaty _coquillage_ off the shore. Yeah. You’re right about that.” Mattie sighed. “Fine. But you at least owe me a girl’s night. How do you feel about painting the town red?”

Carmilla noded. “Yes. Today, I’ll take Willow back. Tonight, we’ll celebrate.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BTW, my twitter is: @_indelible, and I tweet about writing, BTVS, and carmilla like A LOT.  
> Note: Twitter isn't SFW.

After Carmilla evaporated with her smoke-fu, Willow got ready for class. After everything turned screwy last year, she prioritized mystic work, and failures, over her academic career. If she ever was going to get back to being Willow, the _real_ Willow, she had to ensure that this time around she kept herself latched onto texts of the not-pupil-dilating variety.

That Friday morning it was Sociology again, much to Willow’s dismay. She did so well in Sociology 100, at Sunnydale. However, in Austria everything she was taught wouldn’t congeal with everything she was learning.

She bundled her dark-gray cardigan closer to her chest as she faced off the Social Science building. She couldn’t help but wonder how many other vampires were her classmates. How many demons plotted destruction in these same halls.

After Sunnydale High and University of Sunnydale, she would think that creeping nag of danger would become a natural feeling, but yet she couldn’t help but feel very wigged out.

And then, as she squinted closer to that line of thought, she recoiled.

Carmilla _knew_ of her. She _knew_ what Willow did. It’s very, very possible not only that there were demons all around this campus, but _they_ were wigged over _her_.

It was a narcissistic fantasy, fo’sure. She saw that plainly, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

Willow shrugged, ultimately deciding how she felt about Silas was irrelevant to her pressing obligation to kick academic ass. She entered the building, walked the halls, and returned to her desk in the Sociology 400 classroom.

A short, sand-toned women headed the classroom. She wore a blaringly bright scarlet cloak, long gray dreads, seashell blue spectacles, and a nervous tic of biting her lips pink.

“For those of you who never bothered to read the syllabus, I’m Professor Fuchs.” She turned around, towards the big white board, and wrote her name at the highest height she could reach, which was only half-way. “And today we will be talking about....”

And it was all Sumerian from there on out.

Willow scrunched her eyebrows and looked around at her peers. They were jotting notes! Raising their hands! They seemed to be following along. And there was Willow, academia queen, flopping around like... Xander.

This was peculiar. This was Scooby gang peculiar. On the first day, she didn’t come to that conclusion, and _that_ was peculiar too.

Willow raised her hand. “Professor...”

Professor Fuchs looked up from her packet of hand written notes. She stared at Willow, square in the pupil, with a narrow glance that produced deep, crow’s feet on her otherwise young-looking face. “Yes...Rosenberg?”

Willow sighed a small breath of relief, glad that the Professor spoke to her in a language she understood. “I’m sorry but... was Sumerian a pre-req?”

Professor Fuchs combed her hair with her nails, incredibly long and sharp like claws. “It’s a pre-requirement for this _school_. How did you possibly get in without knowing Sumerian? I know SIlas is desperate for Americans but...”

“Oh.” Willow rubbed the curve of her shoulder. She wasn’t sure what to say. Usually academic challenges brought out her confidence -- but looking at Professor Fuch’s squinting expression only brought out confusion and dread. Did dark magic take this from her as well? The thirst for knowledge, for a new challenge?

“Have you considered dropping out?” asked Professor Fuchs.

Willow roughly jerked back, in her seat, as if a beastie popped out of the whiteboard. “Wha..?”

The classroom around her started to break into a choral of chatter and laughter. Willow looked around at the hyena-like faces of her peers, leaning towards her, laughing with open mouths, sharp teeth.

“I’m sorry? Was that too direct for you?” Professor Fuchs smirked, showing off her own canines.

Willow jumped from her desk. “What’s... what’s going on?”

“Let’s just say, if you drop out now, you won’t have to flunk out with a great big F staining your cute, freckled forehead.”

Willow crossed her arms. “I’m not dropping out.”

“Maybe not officially, but that’s what we will tell them after we are done.” Professor Fuchs took a few steps forward, so she was nearly on top of the front row.

Willow, in row three, squirmed a few steps back. “Done?”

Professor Fuch’s grin expanded a bit wider and her yellowed canines protruded. In a blink her eyes illumined to cyber-green, and around her, similarly vibrant pupils flashed in the corner of Will’s view. She looked around, at the classroom, and back to the Professor, and all Will could think of was Oz.

Speckled fur masked masked the classroom in timberwolf and Willow screamed.

She tried to run away, but every step or twist she made ended with her facing another growling werebeast. She used magic to float herself from the ground, but only a few feet before her head brushed the ceiling. The surrounding werebeast reached up, scratched open her jeans, penetrated wounds into her flesh.

" _Enemies, fly and fall... Circling arms raise a wall_!"

Professor Fuchs, a sand colored werebeast, smaller than the rest, reached up to Will. A powerful forcefield whacked her fist, jerking herself back into a crowd of monsters, forcing them to domino out of the way.

“Oh, yeah, and also, Professor Furball, I’m pretty sure the Silas Handbook considers professor-student mauling no bueno.” Willow relaxed her floating magicks, so she stood on top of the forcefield. “ _Aperta_.”

The classroom door flung open, revealing Carmilla, leaning on a locker across the hall, slouched and picking her cubicles. “Alright, Cinnabun?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope you love hate ships because well I do lol

Carmilla smirked at the witchy, _totally not dark,_ redhead, who was panting sweet, hot daggers down the curve of her neck. “Yes?” Carm asked while picking at her already-chipped, black nail polish, in mock-apathy.

“You! What’s going on? Tryin’ to KO me with werebeasts?”

Carm raised an eyebrow. “Here’s a tip about me. I don’t team up with anyone, of any species.”

Willow shifted forward, so her shaking palms, leaned on the wall of lockers, with Carmilla’s head in the center. “Y’know... I have ways to fact-check that.”  

Carmilla looked up.

Will’s mouth was agape, twitching at the edges in a permanent snarl. Her brows furrowed nearly to one, scrunching her skin, so carved in lines traced her forehead and eyes. The arch of her neck, curve of her ears, were blushed with the splotchy red that comes when the pale and freckled _feel_.   

Carm thought she saw the witch at her most murderous point, but Will, from the dorm room, was soft compared to this. And yet, her hair was still flaming like a bonfire on a summer day, not even dark roots for Carm to latch onto.

“I know.” Carmilla let herself slouch a bit deeper in the bed of lockers behind her. “The Scoobies...blablabla....”

Willow released herself from the lockers, took a step back, and deeply exhaled.

The Sociology classroom behind her, door still opened, responded with a whimper of its own, a pack of antsy pups begging for table scraps.

Willow didn’t even acknowledge them. She must be so confident in her forcefield, which reminded Carmilla of her own confidences.

“That’s it? Straddle over?” Carmilla asked, is her raspiest tone. “Not going to come back here, spank the big bad vampire with your fury?”

“Fury? There’s no fury here. The fury lot is very much vacant.” Willow kept her distance, crossed her arms. “Just want to know why you’re here. You have to admit, looks fishy.”

It was odd how Willow’s emotions were written plainly on her face, in every joint of her expression, in such a basic language, even a child could read it, and yet she still was denying the anger and darkness, like that would make it go away. Willow’s achilles heel was throbbing, and yet she still had the audacity to ignore the existence of heels in the first place.

“Was lookin’ for you, Cinnabun.” Carmilla took a small step forward, while zooming in on Willow’s reaction. She stayed put, so Carm took another step. “We need to fill out our roommate agreement form. Figure out a way to get along.”

Willow laughed, one short exhale. “If you think you can use your basic lines on me, you are mistaken. I know who you are. And I’m not some bubbling schoolgirl... well actually... Schoolgirl, check... and bubbling, second check.. but you know what I mean!”  

Carmilla took another step forward, and this time Willow did not stay stone-still. Instead she dipped her hands in her pocket, took a small step back.  

Carm could smell Willow’s radiating heat, an organic, earthy sting like a pile of burnt sticks and ash, and she knew she was breaking the witch down. She took another step forward, and the witch’s knees were shaking, as if they were unsure which direction to go.

“I just think, Cinnabear, that it is very, very important for us to get along. Don’t you think? Don’t you want to get along?”

Willow nodded, with a whimper.

Carm took another few steps, so she was face to face with Will. She traced her sharp jaw, curved neck, with the point of her her nail. “Then, let’s...”

As Carm listened to Willow’s sweet heartbeat, a fast moving pop song, her own power tickled her bits. She grabbed one of Willow’s hands, softly tugged her towards the exit door, unsure if she was dragging her back to The Dean or to their dorm room for some afternoon fun.

It seemed to all be working out...

...until a scalding punch hit Carm square in the back, pushing her to her knees. She cried out in anguish, as the burn bit her from the inside out.

As she turned around, her eyes shifted to angular cat shape square between her warped, vamp-face.

And there was Willow, standing on top of Carm, maintaining her bonfire hair, but with her own shifted eyes, raven nebulas. Electricity zapped between her two palms, like she was tossing a stress ball.

“Can you stop mind-controlling, because, first off, rude...”

* * *

 

The onslaught of rage caressed Carmilla’s body, as it did whenever she transformed into her vamp face. She was very tempted to attack back, show the witch why _Carmilla_ was a feared name in the better part of Eastern Europe, however even as her back spasmed with electrocution, The Dean’s disapproval came to mind.  

“Look, Raven-eyes, I had to make sure you weren’t going to kill me.” Carmilla raised herself from the floor, adjusted her posture to fighting stance, ready to deflect any incoming attacks. “Which, I have to say... backfired...”

“I’m not going to kill you.” Willow flicked her palms towards Carmilla, emitting a gust of wind, pushing the vampire to the lockers, like metal to a magnet. “Like I said, I read the Silas Handbook, and killing your roommates? Not exactly kosher.”

Carmilla tried to push herself off the wall, but she was stuck, as if she had fallen into the depths of a spider’s web. “Then what are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing, _babe_.” Willow headed towards Carmilla, still tossing the blue orb of electricity back and forth. “Just want you to explain to me, very clearly, why those werebeasts wanted me to drop out, why _you_ are attempting to lure me, and mostly why does everyone here speak Sumerian? What... What exactly is going on in Silas?”

Carmilla tried to shrug, but her body was too velcroed to allow her to gesture, even apathetically. She let out a strong exhale, looking up at Willow through her knotted bangs, pretty much unable to answer even the most basic question about what’s going on at Silas. She understood some vague framework to Mother’s plans, but truth was she didn’t really know or care exactly what was going on or why Willow was important.

This was just a job to Carm. One that required her to go through a certain ennui of motions so she could reach the other side, where she would be anywhere but this awful campus.

“I can tutor you,” Carm said, “in Sumerian. I mean, look, I really don’t have the answers, I’m only my Mother’s tool, it’s like handing a razor blade a questionnaire, swear to God. But, hey, buckle up, Lil’ Black Widow, because I can tutor you. Language is kinda an expertise.”

Willow zoomed to Carmilla, in an instant, looming over her. She was panting sweet daggers again, and this time Carmilla squirmed beneath them.

“If you are lying to me, I will zap your head right off, you know that right?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Head right off and then you’ll build sand art with my dust. Plus, bonus, you’ll get the room all to yourself.”

“I’m the only person on this Hellmouth that doesn’t know it.” Willow flicked her wrist, allowing Carmilla to finally push herself off the frigid locker wall. “Fine. Tutor me.”

“Of course I expect to be compensated.”

Willow shook her head, muttered something about a Spike to herself, that Carmilla couldn’t quite make out.

“I mean, you’ll pay me by not killing me,” Carm said.  

Willow smiled. “For now.”


	13. Chapter 13

"We’ll start immediately." Willow relaxed her magick’s, so Carmilla was no longer bound to the wall. For Will, it was as easy as flicking a fly from a spiderweb. "I need to up my Sumerian-fu as soon as possible. Be all literate with the ancient text and stuff."

Carm barely nodded as she stretched her neck and back.

"Y'know, here I was dubious and all of my German and poof -- Sumerian. Silas... not exactly home to the Wiener Schnitzel."

"Why are you talking to me?"

Willow crossed her arms, rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm not. I'm just talking... talking to me. It's a me talking thing. Not a you talking thing."

The vampire said nothing as she slouched into the lockers and stared at the front door down the hallway.

Short internal bites slithered up Willow’s throat. She wanted Carm to give her just a glance, show the slightest acknowledgement, that she her seductive mind-tricks made her feel something.

Because they _were_ effective. When she was under Carmilla’s hold, she was overcome with a tranquil lust that she wouldn’t mind melting into it. She was out of it now, but even still the memory warmed up her groin.

If only Carm gave her one look like the look Tara gave, doe-eyes, gazing at Willowin wonder, first, fear second, of her girlfriend’s power.

Or a look like one of  Buffy’s vampires -- their pointed expressions, awestruck and wondrous, for that brief, holy second, before Buff dusted them.

Neither have ever looked as...bored... as Carmilla did. Willow wouldn’t pursue, but she would like to know the struggle of not pursuing was mutual.

"Quickly." Willow pushed Carmilla out of the school building, into the sun-soaked campus, wanting to move on from the uncomfortable feeling. Carmilla slumped as she walked, as if she was protecting her flesh from the autumn rays, however her skin didn't even fizzle.

They headed eastwards, back to Will's dorm, after Carm diligently argued against studying Sumerian in the library. She said that was as foolish as Will dousing her ginger locks with hairspray in front of a bonfire.

The walk was brisk, only a block or two, however, Willow was exerting so much mental effort, it felt like it took forever. She was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other in steady motion. Trying to avoid the rabbit hole of thinking about....everything.

One foot. Then the next. One foot. Then the other foot. One foot and -- _fuck, binding Carm to the wall of lockers felt good_. The other and -- _almost as good as peeling off Warren's flesh_. One foot -- _no, no. That was wrong. If that's what I'm reminded of, then is this also wrong?_. And the -- _I don't know but I didn't go full dark. Doesn't that -- doesn't that matter?_

"Y'know, Raven-eyes, if you think any harder, I'm pretty sure your cute strawberry-head, will pop right off. And witch cleanup? Not exactly my repertoire."

Willow jerked her head backwards, towards Carmilla. "Wha..?"

Carmilla shrugged.

"I --- " For a brief second, the concerned statement made Willow hope that there was something real in Carm's seductions -- and then, the immediate following second, she decided that itself was another frivolous seduction. She tightened her grip on her crossed arms, as if her flesh and bone was an armour.

Carmilla ignored the gesture as she moved past Willow, towards the dorm building's front door, and let herself in. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

Willow squinted at Carmilla, her flopping hand, patting her wrinkled, leopard sheets with the frantic motion of a cat tossing a mouse between its paws.

“Come on, don’t make me go all _i don’t bite....hard_ on you,” said Carmilla.   

“Yeahs, yeahs. Vampire...teeth...biting. Plus prob were at the crucifixion too?” Willow walked closer to Carmilla, avoiding eye-contact, as she studied the used bed. There were dirty socks framing the empty spot with a wet, purple stain in the center. “Also, slob. One more cliche, and I could win vampire-bingo.”  

Carm raised, with one hand, a mauve-dyed leather text about the size of a newly born infant. “Sorry, love, but between you, me, and the text, we need a bed of space.”

Willow shrugged, as she turned around to plop on her own slate-sheets. It was pristinely made, not one wrinkle or pillow out of place. She gestured her fingers towards her.

Carmilla softly growled as she headed towards the opposing bed, book in hand.

Shortly after, they sat cross legged, across from each other, with the text open in between.

“So, do you have any experience with Sumerian?” asked Carmilla.

“One time I listened to Giles read the enjoining spell. I was the spirit! I didn’t really use my mouth parts though.” Willow shrugged. “I felt so powerful that evening....”

“Ya, and I’m sure binding a vamp to a wall of lockers made you feel weak.”

Willow looked up at Carm, who was zoning into the random page, as if it spelled out a cure. She was being so curt but her demeanor was so shy... Tara like. It didn’t add up.

Will shrugged, unsure what to say. Yes, she felt powerful shaking of Carmilla’s seductions, but she also knew medicating with magicks is how the bad stuff happens. She didn’t want to dwell on the way Carm stuck to the wall, entirely incapable of moving or getting away, made her feel...

“There are other ways...” Carmilla traced a line in the book with her nails, chipped and black. “For you to learn, I mean. We can get all this knowledge and put it in your brain, one two three...”

“I’m not supposed to suck energy from books anymore.”

“Not suppose to, huh?” Carmilla smirked as she looked up at Willow for the first time. Her black eyes merging in and out of her black fringes, like a panther peering at prey through high-grass. “How do you feel about meeting mother?”

 

 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

It was only a short walk later, before Carmilla was ringing the familiarly pearl-crested doorbell, adjacent to the worn, maple-wooden door. There was a maiden to her side, like there has been many times before.

This maiden was different though. Carm was aware of that.

There were usually only two different types of bait. The first was the shell-shocked one. They would be shaking like a rattle as snot dripped from nostril to pout, always blathering about God or their families or something. Needing a literal push and shove to get anywhere.

Then there was the smitten. The one who were so zoned into Carm’s every movement, they kept themselves ignorant as they walked right into the belly of the beast. Clingy children, blind to all but their frivolous desires.

But Willow -- she kept her head up showing that she was alert to her surroundings that extended far beyond Carm. But, at the same time, her spine curved in relaxation, confident that whatever was inside the mansion was something she could handle.

Carm was waiting for the show to end. For the witch to shatter in a crying fit or start obsessively masturbating or something. For her to be like every other bait she has encountered thus far.

Her strength was shocking.

“What if she’s not home?” asked Will, after an uncomfortable amount of time has passed since the last ring.

“She’s home.” Carm rang again, pelted the door with the dragon-faced knocker. “If she knew the great Vengeful Valkyrie was with me, she wouldn’t be acting so catty.”

Willow briefly hummed to herself in contemplation. “What about me magic-ing it open?”

Carm turned towards the witch.“You would do that?”

Willow shrugged. “Breaking and entering? No bueno. _But_ breaking and entering a vamp-extreme’s home? Think even the Coven would be OK with that.”

Carmilla extended her hands towards the door in a _go-ahead_ gesture. “Be my guest.”

“ _Aperta_ ,” Will cursed, casually like the spell was nothing to her.

And yet, Carm felt the short staccato instantly, prickling her skin, raising her arm hair.

The maple-door buckled and shook.

As Willow glared at the movements, thick angular crevices marked her freckled forehead.

Popping noise; nuts and bolts flying out of the frame, as the chocolate-stained door toppled over.  

Carm raised an eyebrow. “You’re no joke, huh?”

“I been known to make the occasional pun or two,” said Willow, as she helped herself into the mansion.

“Wait. Hold up.” Carm sped up to her. “This isn’t some basic Sunnydale sewer nest. You don’t know what you’re marching into.”

“I get it. She’s more than your Dean-Sire-Mother. Yikes. Mouthful much?” Willow spun around in the foyer. “Wow...”

Willow’s double-step reminded Carm of the first time she met the foyer, which has kept the same aesthetic as it did three hundred years ago. The memory lit up Carm’s eyes, far brighter than the actual chandelier’s illumination, dim and barely helpful, yet still able to draw attention with its grand-size, criss-crossing pearl chains, like some sort of decadent sea-beast. Underneath, crooning angularly and out of sight, was a staircase with a marble banister and carpeted steps.

Willow was slowly walking up, with a stake in her hand, and awe in her face. She might be able to fight the big fight, but her doe-eyes were just as naive as every maiden before.

“You should put that away,” Carmilla advised, following the witch, “Trust me. You don’t want to piss Mother off.”

Willow shrugged, stake still in hand, as she made it to the top of the stairs to a hallway. “Oh ya. I’m just going to be entirely unarmed as I skip right up this hellmouth’s big bad like... some unarmed-skipping-person.”

A great _woosh-ing_ noise jerked its way down the staircase, as Willow’s fist jerked backwards, causing her stake to topple off the second floor, back into the foyer.

The door to Willow’s immediate left cracked open with a high-pitch howl.

“Seems pretty good, except forgo the skipping. This is a no skipping facility,” said a velvety voice from within the room.  

Willow stood in the hallway, rockstill, looking back and forth from the room with the ominous voice and the vampire behind her.

When Carmilla caught up, she pushed the small of Will’s back. “Come on.”

Willow grabbed her own forearm as she turned to face Carm. “Why am I doing this?”

“Cause you know that there’s no way in this hellish Earth that you’ll pass a Silas class without Sumerian in your back pocket,” Carm said, as she dipped her palm into Willow’s back pocket.  

Willow squirmed, jerking Carm’s hand out.  

A short pause. Black rings outlining Will’s iris. A small, side-smirk from Carm, as she held her hands up, like she was pulled over by the police.

Will narrowed her watch on Carm, pupil bouncing to every movement. “Thing is, not exactly going to make honor roll if it’s my Spanish class that succeeds in eating me alive -- also Spanish? You would think they would offer a different language elective.. like... just throwing a linguistic bone here.. but how about some quote unquote dead languages?”

“Two things, Cinnabun. I hate to admit it but, the last time I saw you face a pack of werebeasts, you were handling yourself pretty well...for, y’know, a temperamental rookie. The only beasties on this campus that has a chance of eating you would be ... well, Mother and me.” Carm pushed Willow again, slightly harder, so the witch slipped into the room. “But, don’t worry your precious raven head. The Dean wants you alive, I promise that,” she added in a whisper.

* * *

“Karnstein?” asked the voice, soft-spoken and smooth, a starking dissonance to Carm’s bristle and rasp. “Is that you, dear?”

Willow blinked a bit, as she glanced up at Carmilla, who was standing in-front of the doorway with crossed arms. She was biting her upper-lip and squinting so tight her brows furrowed together. Willow wondered why she was so disgruntled. Didn’t she want to bring Willow to the Dean?

Wasn’t this all her plan?

After an uncomfortable amount of silence, Carmilla loudly sighed. “Yeah, it’s me.” She slugged deeper into the room. “Brought company too.”

“A date? At a time like this?” asked the buttery voice, before curtly laughing to herself.

Willow stepped forward. “No, not a date. Just a---”

A short gasp of awe interrupted her retort. Her surroundings protruded a thick, vanilla must, with undercurrents of old pennies, dried blood, and the sweet peel of almonds. It was a smell that was both very ancient and very familiar. The source, most obvious, was the books that streamed around the room, like flooding canals, dripping far beyond the wall-mounted bookshelves, that left no wall unscathed, into floor-piles that made up most of the furniture in the domed, cave-like space.

“Nifty...” Willow mumbled with a numb tongue.

“Bookish, huh?” The questioning woman smirked, showing sharp canines, only slightly unnerving compared to the two horns that branched from the top of her head, as if they were hellish trees, nurtured by the dark roots of her mind.

She wore a black button-down with oversized collars that rubbed against her plump cheeks, scarlet-stained lips. Constantly nudging herself, it was as if she had a spare lifetime of energy  devoted to adjusting posture, puttering with clothing.

Her face was filled with soft-features, that Will forgot with each blink, however her body, wide and pronounced, lingered unapologetically.

“They call me The Dean,” she said, whilst sitting cross-legged in a leather bound chair, rubbing the curves of her knees. She leaned a bit more forward, in the direction of Will.

Willow nudged her falling fringes behind her ears whilst keeping silent. She looked up at Carm for some instructions, but the vampire was staring past Willow, towards the door, seemingly out of touch.

The Dean continued. “You witch’s....always the same. Bookish. _Addicted_ to knowledge and fiction. Science and idealism. Quite endearing.”  

“Nuh-uh. Not true.” A candy-red blush crept up Will’s neck, spilling into her cheeks and temples. “I know a witch -- I knew a witch, that never would have scoured to addiction and abuse.”

“You knew a witch huh?” The Dean smiled, licked her upper lip. “You knew a witch, but you certainly are not that witch. Not from what I hear.”

“No. I’m not. But...” Willow sighed. “But I’m working on it.”

“Then why are you here?” asked The Dean. “If you aren’t here to help me, then why would Karn be stupid enough to bring you here.”

Carmilla kept silent as she rubbed the inside of her right arm. She was slightly shaking.

Willow felt concern over Carm’s odd, mouse-like demeanor. She knew that if she talked to Carm like that, the vampire would be, at best, sipping her neck like she was an oversized juice box. At worst, trying to penetrate Will’s mind with her sexy-vampire voo-doo. Either way, she wouldn’t be complacent.

How did The Dean have such power over Carmilla? What did she do to her?

And then a moment later, as the concern began to grip Will’s chest, a second, more seductive emotion hit with a vengeance. It was the burning flames of embarrassment, eagerly licking Will’s skin, like each freckle was a drop of spilled gasoline.

Why should she care about the feelings and trauma of an apocalyptic, murdering, vampire, who practiced non-consent?

Willow spoke up. “Look, I’ll deliver this as straight as my mouth-muscles let me. Carm implied you could instantly teach me Sumerian without me having to suck any energy out of anything. If your name means you actually do any Dean-ing... you would know that Sumerian is a pre-req for Silas. So, in conclusion, Sumerian me up, Scotty.”

The Dean smiled so wide, her dimples dug into her cheeks. She extended both arms so her palms faced forward and nodded towards them.

Will, unnerved that touching The Dean would end with her growing two brutish horns, looked up at Carm looking for support.

Carm shook her head as she tangled her fingers in her long, black hair. “Oh, Raven-eyes. You really need to lighten up.”

Will lightly snarled at this, but complied anyway, as she laid both her palms on top of the Dean’s.

It was instant --

palms glowing into astral comets, books in motion, streaming off the shelves and out the room, down the staircase into the foyer, will’s stake buzzing buzzing in the opposite direction, finding its place above her head, zigging left, zigging right, each movement trailing stardust, and will, eyes as black as the deep sea, hair in competition, soaking in carmillla’s short, sarcastic laugh, ting ting ting-ing into will’s palms, metallic rainbow, as dead languages curved around her tongue with the soft tang of aged moss

It was familiar --

rack said she tasted like strawberries, did the dean agree?, rack tasted sharp like ginger, giles tasted like fresh blood, the dark books tasted like vanilla. what did buffy taste like? the dean or carm? would their flavors take away the bitter tang of _death_ that lived inside will’s mouth, dripping out of her saliva glands, hitting the wood-paneled floor  & whispering rack’s name... what did the scoobies do with his body? is it still there, in that inter-dimensional room? smushed face, waxy fat,  outlined in nails and skin and hair, bursted organs trying to penetrate another dimension, any at all, (except, probably, the one with the shrimp) with their stench

“Will?” asked Carmilla, standing up now, lingering over Willow. “Raven-eyes, you ok?”

Willow looked up and softly smiled, which pushed drool out of her mouth. She covered her face, head blushing scarlet, until Carm pulled out a washcloth from her back pocket.

“Usually for uh cleaning blood,” she said as she handed it to Will.

Will eagerly took the washcloth. She cleaned herself and took a deep swallow. “How do I know if it worked? The Sumerian?”

“ _Salamu_?” asked The Dean.

“ _Sutinnu.a._ ” said Willow. “Oh. Wow.”

The Dean nodded as she released her palms to her sides, away from Will. She allowed a period of silence to penetrate the room, a distant clock tick tick tick-ed in the space, before she spoke again. “So, Willow, will you return to my mansion?”

Willow’s guts were in knots, she could hear her entire molecular-build whisper out to her. They said, take the knowledge and run, and yet her neck allowed her head to nod in approval. Of course she’ll be back to take more of this poisoned knowledge. She wanted to learn so badly, even at the price of her soul.

It felt so good... more seductive than anything Carm offered her.

“Good,” said The Dean, as she pulled out a violet volume from the nearest bookshelf, “I’ll see you then.” 


	15. Chapter 15

“Let’s paint...” Carmilla suggested as she hung her arms around Mattie’s slender neck, dressing her sister in ashen whites, as if she was another exotic scarf in Mattie’s boudeau. 

Her figure slightly glowed from the sunset radiating behind her, a crimson halo sinking into turpentine slime. She dug her toes in the mushy sand of Silas shore with more ease and confidence than she previously had, just twelve hours earlier when she first bumped into Mattie. Since then, WIllow had met the Dean, and now it was time for the promised reward -- a girl’s night with her sister.  

“Oh, you little rascal.” Mattie said, as she rubbed Carm’s bony wrists. “So Galinda isn’t helping Dorothy no’more?” 

“She’s...” Carm sighed, as she loosened her posture, so she no longer lingered over Mattie, but, instead, tangled back into herself with crossed arms and a curved spine. “Willow’s been re-acquainted with the taste. Won’t be long ‘til Mother’s plans slide into place.” 

“ _ C’est la mort _ .” Mattie’s shape was barely visible, so doused in black apparel it blended in and out of the night sky. However, the golden glimmer of her talisman necklace protruded outwards, like the first twinkle of the night. Her long, dark hair was meticulously combed and straightened, so nothing obstructed the view of her endeared face. She had high-rise cheekbones and lips stained with a ruby-red lipstick, with warm-brown skin, and a petite, rounded nose. 

She shined her sly smile. “And now your reward?” 

“Yes.” Carm nodded. “Like I said, let’s paint...” 

Behind them, a gaggle of students were congregating by the docks, humming a deep-throated latin chant. It was the alchemy club -- quite literally a feast for fools. Carm’s stomach audibly grumbled and she shrugged at Mattie’s shade. 

“Oh, honey, I cut dweeb from my diet a century ago.” Mattie laughed as she hooked her arm through Carmilla’s. “Let’s get some delicatessen blood.” 

* * *

“This is the most underwhelming party you ever dragged me to, including The Curry-calypse.” Carmilla slouched a bit deeper into the exposed brick wall that faced the loft party that Mattie had brought them to.

“Dragged? Oh hunny, you can droop as much as you like, you can’t fool me. I know you’re excited to hang with big sis.” Mattie took a deep sip of the red wine glass in her hand while nudging a glass of white to Carm. “Wine and cheese. No students in sight. Blood that’s...tarty, dry, aged.  _ This _ is what we should be drinking.” 

Mattie smiled; her lips’ stained with maroon splotches.

Her face was like the mirror of the past. If tonight followed the old pattern, Carm would end it stoned-silly and filled with blood-lust. This prospect drummed excitement into her veins, as if she already had her first sip of the night. 

“Mattie. I can choose my own blood. Hello. 300 Years Old. Not a baby anymore.” 

Mattie shook her head, slightly, as she looked down at slouching-Carmilla. “When you hit your first thousand, we’ll talk.”

Below them, a frog voiced academic raised their voice. “No, I am sorry but your theory doesn’t adhere to any of the laws. Meta. Biological. Physics. You are going to have to reassess your position.” 

Mattie winked at Carm and Carm groaned. 

“You can’t be seriously pining over these pretentious, pathetic drones. The way they try to making significance out of their insignificance...it’s honestly revolting.” 

Mattie didn’t respond, only slithered away from the top floor of the loft.  

Carm shook her head as she sipped her white wine. 

“Blah,” said Carmilla. 

The wine was too sweet, like tainted sugar water, like the kind of cheap juicebox stuff the Summer Society was probably chugging right now. Carm couldn’t help but wonder if the wine was additional shade. 

This was supposed to be a girl’s night, yet her sister seemed to not be able to help herself. She always loved to slightly dig into Cam’s insecurities. 

At least her love life hasn’t been brought up yet. Mattie loved to sick her canines into that. 

Sometimes literally. 

Carm looked around at the party, in a sad attempt at enjoying herself, but it was just another rotting tooth. Just another decrepit building on the quivering jaw line of the Silas shore. There was nothing here of interest. 

Instead, Carm depleted her wine glass, closed her eyes, and softly leaned her head back into the wall, relaxing into herself. Until a squeaky voiced interrupted. 

“H-h-hello?” 

Carm opened up an eye. 

The intruder was hidden beneath long blond hair and a curled slouch, yet there was something vibrant about her. Something blaring, in the immediate way she toyed with her long jean skirt, in the  quick pants of her breath. 

“And who are you?” asked Carmilla. 

“Tara.” She pushed her hair out of her face to smile, shortly, softly, until something occurred to her, something that made her drop her locks, hide from view. “Wha-wha-what’s your name?” 

Carmilla snorted. Looked the blonde up and down. She had significantly more curves than Willow, and her skin was smooth, no freckles in sight, except for the few that wrapped around her fingers. 

“Carmilla.” Carmilla stretched out her hand. 

“S-s-s-sorry if I am interrupting you.” Tara said, avoiding Carm’s gesture. 

Carmilla let her hand go limp. “I thought this was a professor-only party.” 

“I’m not a student.” 

“TA?” Carmilla shrugged. “Whatever, honestly. Don’t care. You know what I do care about?” Carmilla leaned forward, so she could smell Tara, but she was oddly odorless. “Leaving this place. Come with me?” 

Tara bit her lower lip and nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major Hiatus because I gotta work on something else for a bit  
> More likely the hiatus will be broken early if there is a demand. Otherwise see you uh some time after winter
> 
> @_indelible


End file.
